Values to Color

Last week I wrote about the value of values.  Today I want to show you some ways that I use value sketches to create better paintings.  I'm trying to do this more regularly as I think the resulting paintings are much more successful.  I have some paintings that have fallen a part about mid-way through and I couldn't pull them off. In those cases if I had done the value study, I would have figured out the problem and headed in a better direction.

The small value study was done prior to the actual painting.  I worked out the composition and values first before starting on the painting.  If you look at the value study you will see some fairly prominent dots of color and then if you look closer still you will see some dots of color that fade into the  original value study.  The dots that fade into the value painting are the same value as the grey in the value study- that means I nailed the value.  So colors have values too.

Here is the resulting painting based on this value study.

Then let's turn it back into values and see how I did.

I increased the amount of dark trees, hedges, and grass, bumped up the gravel path, and changed the value of the sky.  (I actually put the sky in based on the value study scraped part of it off and put it in a little darker with some different colors,)

This painting was started  as part of a class I took from Sara Beth Fair on Cityscapes.  I've worked on it for a few hours after class and there is still some work to do  You can see it in the color version of the painting but it really shows up in the black and white version- the very top of the building on the right looks like its about to fall over.  So some more work to do on this one.

Sara Beth's work is based on the old Russian master's techniques.  Her website is www.sarabethfair.com  Sara Beth is one of small group of us who get together to draw from life (people or still lifes).